by Ryan Casey
But not for himself.
He saw fear for someone else.
“My daughter,” the man said. “My Kelsie. She’s—she’s—You have to protect her. She’s—”
But then something happened.
Mike pushed down.
Just a little too hard.
The man’s neck opened up. Blood spurted out.
And as he lay there on the road, choking on his own blood, he was unable to say another word.
But all Mike could do was watch.
All Mike could do was stay with the man as the life slipped from his body, as his struggle to save his own daughter went on.
And he couldn’t even feel a fraction of remorse, as the man’s good eye went totally bloodshot; as the muscles in his body went hard; as he tried to reach up and smack Mike free of him.
He couldn’t feel a fraction of remorse as the life disappeared from his eyes.
As he stopped choking.
As the life exited his body.
Mike stood up. He wiped his bloodied hands on his chest. Then he looked back, knife in hand, at the rest of his people.
They looked at him differently. With fear. With sadness. With something different entirely.
“Come on,” Mike said, not even looking at a single one of them. “The street looks clearer. I’d say we get out of here while we still can.”
He walked past his people.
He walked past Holly.
The blood on his hands began to crust over.
And in his mind, the memory of that man’s dying wish to find his daughter, and how he’d taken that opportunity away from him.
Chapter Seventeen
The good news was, they were out of the small town of Longridge and back into the spacious countryside.
The bad news?
Mike’s mind and emotions were still very much back there, back in the town, caught up in what he’d done to that man; in how he’d taken his life without so much as a moment’s hesitation.
Not to mention the fact that they’d been forced to take the long way around after their run-in on the road.
The afternoon sun hid behind a thick bundle of clouds. It looked like it was going to pour down for the first time in a long while. At least that meant they could work on getting some water gathered the good old-fashioned way. They weren’t running low on bottled water just yet, but it was something Mike was very conscious of, even if he did have some purification tablets stashed in his rucksack. He was conscious to save those until he absolutely needed them.
There were various ways of collecting water. The trap most people fell into is that they’d blindly trust rainwater as pure and natural, when in fact it picks up pollutants from the air and whatever surfaces it touches before collection. The best thing to do, once rainwater has been collected, is to use coffee filters and the like to strain out any sediment that may get into it. Even better if you can set up a filter on the barrels you’re collecting rainwater in, if you’re stationary and staying somewhere. On the road, when in need of making drinking water safe, the classic trick is to boil the water for a good ten minutes to make sure it is safe to drink, to throw in a water purification tablet (if you’ve got any), or to even use a homemade water filter to remove impurities.
How’s it done? Turn a plastic bottle on its head, cut out the bottom, then use a piece of cloth at the mouth to block anything falling out. Then, fill the bottle a third of the way with sand, another third with charcoal, and then the last third with small rocks. Pour the water through and voila—filtered water.
Naturally, in an end of the world scenario, any source of water is a dime a dozen. Rain. Rivers. Ponds. Even toilets. Everything is valuable. So make the most of it before someone else more knowledgeable does.
Mike looked at the fields around him. He had a slight pain on his back where the man’s knife had swung at him, but fortunately it wasn’t as serious as it felt in the moment. Holly’s cut on her neck wasn’t too bad, either. It’d heal. Just had to hope it didn’t get infected or anything like that. They’d keep an eye on their wounds. At the end of the day, they’d been lucky.
Luckier than the other guy, anyway.
As Mike walked, he imagined that he was just on a trekking holiday. That’s all he had to think of now. He was past Longridge. That was the first major hurdle—a hurdle that hadn’t been totally jumped, of course. And sure, there’d be more hurdles on the way, but hopefully nothing quite like that.
The hardest thing about what’d just happened in Longridge? The most difficult thing to face up to; to accept?
He hadn’t felt any remorse killing that man.
Even when the man had begged for Mike to try and find his daughter for him, he hadn’t felt any remorse.
He’d just felt anger.
Anger that the man had threatened his daughter.
Anger that he’d put a blade to Holly’s neck and actually started cutting.
He didn’t care that his reaction had made the others uncomfortable. He didn’t even care that he’d murdered someone right in the eyes of a bloody police officer.
He’d done what he had to do. For himself.
He’d used the lack of the new rules of the world to his advantage.
Did that make him a monster? Or did it make him the most real he’d ever been, no longer bound by the chains of what society wanted him to do?
He shook his head, let out a sigh. Arya trailed by his side.
“At least you aren’t judging me, hmm?” he said.
She glanced at him. Almost as if she was uncertain about him.
Bloody typical.
He walked alone at the front of the group for a while. The plan was simple: stay off the roads as much as possible. There’d be times when they had to pass through small residential areas, but it was manageable—if they kept their wits about them.
It was right now that Mike wished he’d been able to hold on to the rifles from the prisoners back when they’d opened fire on the cabin at the Rocky Cliffs. What a difference they would’ve made—as a deterrent above anything.
He heard footsteps, then. Someone stepping up beside him.
When he turned, he saw it was Alison.
She looked at him differently. But it was a way of looking at him that he’d grown familiar with already.
“What?” he asked.
Alison raised her eyebrows. “Nothing. What makes you think I have anything to ask?”
“I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re going to go all police officer on me.”
“Actually, you barely know me at all.” She paused. “But yeah. Yeah, I suppose I am going to go ‘all police officer’ on you. You got that right.”
Mike sighed. He should’ve known this was coming. “Any chance we can just skip the bulk of the conversation and get to the real message?”
“You killed someone back there, Mike. You… you had a chance to let him go. You had a chance to forgive. But you did it. Right in front of your own daughter. Right in front of everyone.”
Mike turned back awkwardly, looked over at the rest of the group. “I did what I—”
“Don’t say you did what you had to. You did what you wanted to. The sooner you step up, the sooner you face that, the better.”
Mike sighed, then. He lowered his head, kept on walking. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “But you have to understand something. I don’t care who that man was. I don’t care what his game was, what he was trying to do, whether he was good or bad before the lights went out. I don’t care about any of that. I just care about protecting the people I love. And that’s what I’ll do. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I had to.”
Mike was expecting to hear more of it from Alison—to get even more of a grilling.
But in the end, something different happened.
“I’d have done the same. If I was in your shoes.”
Mike turned. Stuttered a little.
“You know, I had a daughter once.”
M
ike’s heart began to race. Because the fact she had a daughter and the way she said it… it didn’t sound like good news.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can talk about it now. I was young. Nineteen. Should’ve known better. Anyway, I decided to have the kid. Actually, as scared as I was, I found myself looking forward to it, you know? I found myself getting behind this idea of life. But… but my daughter didn’t make it. Didn’t make it through childbirth. I don’t think I’ve ever felt pain like that. And I swore to myself never to get myself in a position where I could feel it again.”
“I’m sorry,” Mike said. “Truly.”
“I remember wanting to just tear up the world. I wanted to attack everyone. I separated with Alex, the guy I was with at the time. I cut myself off from everything and everyone. And you know… if someone had told me there was someone responsible for what’d happened, I could’ve done what you just did before. Even if it wasn’t true, I could’ve done what you did.”
The pair of them looked at one another. Silence pervaded as the countryside fields stretched on.
“Just don’t lose sight of who you are, Mike,” Alison said before walking ahead to lead the group. “And don’t lose sight of the person you want your daughter to grow to be.”
He swallowed a lump in his throat. Looked back at Holly, caught her eye and tried to smile.
She smiled back.
But he could see it already.
He could see it in her eyes.
This world was changing her.
This world was going to change everyone.
And it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Chapter Eighteen
Holly walked with Harriet and couldn’t get the memory of what’d happened in Longridge out of her mind.
She looked at Dad as he walked up ahead, Alison and Arya with him. In front, there was Kumal, Richard, and Gina. Nobody was really saying much. It felt like there was a real tension in the air. A tension that had been bubbling over for a while, but had now burst into whatever this was.
And it was the reality of what’d happened in Longridge that’d done it.
The reality of what almost happened to Holly.
And what her dad had done to the man who’d tried to hurt her.
She took a deep breath of the fresh country air. The flashback filled her mind. The blood. The gargling cries. And that final moment as Dad stared down at the man on the road. The look of fear in the man’s eyes—and that feral look in Dad’s eyes. A look she’d never seen before.
She knew Dad was just trying to protect her. She knew he’d saved her life—again.
But she couldn’t shake off the nagging question that was haunting her the more she thought it.
If this was just the seventh day, what was going to happen from here if they didn’t get to this safe place after all?
Just how much further were things going to go, and how much more control were the people around her going to lose?
“You know, I’m not gonna lie,” Harriet said. “What your dad did for you back there was pretty badass.”
Holly felt the hairs on her arms standing on end. She cleared her throat, looked away from Harriet. “Yeah. Well. I… I kind of wish he hadn’t.”
Harriet puffed out her lips and snorted. “That bloke was going to kill you.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“He was going to kill you. Your dad stood up for you. And what he did. That… that takes balls. Or whatever the politically correct way of saying that is these days.”
Holly tasted bitterness in her mouth. She could understand Harriet’s sentiment. But the way Dad had acted… the way he’d killed that man. She couldn’t dress up the fact that he’d taken a man’s life. And not just a man’s life, but a man who in the end was begging for mercy; a man like him, who just wanted the best for his family.
“I just don’t want us to turn into monsters,” Holly said. “I… I want us to hold on to our humanity. That’s all.”
Harriet puffed out her lips, chuckled a little.
Holly frowned. “What?”
Harriet shook her head. “Nothing.”
“No, really. Why are you laughing?”
“It’s just what you said then,” Harriet said. “About ‘holding on to our humanity’. You say it like the world wasn’t filled with monsters before the event.”
“Not the kind that is about now.”
Harriet raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
Holly felt a sickening guilt in her stomach, then. She’d heard the rumours that Harriet had a hard time from her parents. That her dad was… that he wasn’t nice to her in some way.
But she could see the vulnerability in Harriet’s eyes now. She could see the way they were watering. And she wanted to take back what she’d said.
“Sorry,” Holly said.
“I know what happened wasn’t exactly ideal,” Harriet said. “I know it wasn’t like, dream-dad material. It won’t win him any awards. But shit. What I’d give for a dad who’d look out for me like that. What I’d give for someone who… who cares for me like that.”
She looked away, then. Her voice was breaking.
And at that moment, Holly wanted nothing more than to reassure Harriet that she was surrounded by people who cared about her now.
But at the same time… she found herself looking ahead. Looking at Dad. And realising something, well and truly.
“I’ve been hard on him,” Holly said. “I’ve… I’ve given him a hard time. But it’s only because—”
“Because you care about him,” Harriet said. “You want him to be the best version of himself. You saw how far he sunk, and you don’t want him to go down that path again. You want… you want him to keep on being your dad.”
She looked at Holly and she smiled.
“I get it, Hol. Really, I do.”
Holly felt guilty again, mostly because she’d underestimated just how much more there really was to Harriet than it seemed on the surface.
“We’ll get to this safe zone,” Holly said. “And when we get there… one way or another, we’ll make sure the world’s better. We’ll make sure we stick together, even when the bad people out there want to change that. Okay?”
Harriet smiled. “You’ve got a heart of gold; you know that?”
Holly looked away. “Not really.”
“No, really. I was tough on you. I guess part of it was because you were so nice. But hey. We can be awkward bitches at times, can’t we?”
Holly smiled again. “Here’s to being awkward bitches.”
Harriet smiled back. And at that moment, it felt like the pair of them were closer than they’d ever been. It felt like, as the sun re-emerged from behind the clouds, they had an understanding—a friendship—that went way beyond what it used to be.
The new world was strange in its ways.
But Holly knew there was something else she needed to do right now.
“I have to tell him I understand,” Holly said. “I… I have to tell him I get why he did what he did.”
Harriet nodded. She planted a hand on Holly’s back, patted it. “Then you go do it,” she said. “Just remember. If ever you need…”
She didn’t finish what she was saying.
She went pale. Deathly pale, really suddenly.
And then something else happened.
Blood started to pool from her nostrils.
Holly’s body filled with fear. She rushed over to her. “Harriet?”
But all Harriet did was stare up in fear.
All she did was glare at Holly as her face got paler, as more blood began to flow.
“Harriet!”
And as the rest of the group realised what was happening, Holly could only watch as Harriet fell to the grass, hand in hers.
And as she slipped into unconsciousness, she gave Holly’s hand a final squeeze; then she started shaking.
Rapidly.
Unconscious.
Chapter Nineteen
The second Mike heard his daughter cry out Harriet’s name, he knew something bad was happening.
He spun around. Squinted over at Holly and Harriet, who had been walking at the back of the group.
But it took his eyes a second to adjust. Took him a moment to adapt to what he was looking at. Because at first, he didn’t think he could see two people at all. Just Holly, standing there, shock on her face.
But then he saw Harriet.
She was lying on the ground. And from this distance, it looked like she was shaking.
The worst thing?
Blood was streaming from her nostrils, right down her cheeks.
Sickness hit Mike right at the core. All kinds of options spiralled around his mind. A seizure? Some kind of illness? Who knows what kind of effect the EMP could’ve had, really? It stood to reason that there’d be more bugs around with nobody around to clean surfaces, and the chance of water not being totally decontaminated, not to mention the rise of dead bodies out in the open. But this didn’t seem like a bug or an infection. It seemed like something else. A seizure of some kind. He’d seen them before, when he was in the military. One of the guys on his team, Carlos. It’d been scary, seeing him writhe around, so out of control of his bodily functions. It’d stuck with Mike, haunting him to this day.
But there’d been no blood when Carlos had his seizure.
There’d been nothing like this.
He reached Harriet’s side. Holly was crouched down beside her, holding her hand. She was getting hysterical. “She—she just fell. She started bleeding and fell and then she—she started moving like this.”
Mike put a hand on Holly’s shoulder then crouched down beside Harriet. “Let me take a look at her.”
He could see that Harriet’s eyes were twitching all over the place. The worst thing? She was biting down pretty hard on her tongue, which wasn’t good at all. They’d missed the chance to get something in her mouth to block her from biting herself.
But the blood. The bright red flowing blood. It made Mike’s stomach turn.
“Does anyone know whether Harriet was prone to seizures in the past?” Mike asked.